See the luxurious new Caledonian Sleeper trains which launch in October

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• Tim M says:

  1 Feb1 February 03:31

  As long as aviation fuel is not taxed, rail, the second most energy-efficient form of transport after cycling, will have its wheels pulled under it. Bravo for the the article! Lets have more.

  • Joseph Heenan says:

    1 Feb1 February 04:24

    Whilst aviation fuel tax (or lack thereof) is an issue, I don’t think it’s the only one.

    If I book well in advance I can get a reasonable choice of trains and planes at not dissimilar prices.

    If booking at short-ish notice the trains are always considerably more expensive. I’m fairly certain that’s not because they’re almost full.

    • guesswho2000 says:

      1 Feb1 February 10:04

      I’d say one of the issues is clearly the fact you can fly in 45 mins vs 4/5(?) hours on the train. Ok, ignoring the time spent at the airport. That said, I’ve always thought UK domestic mainland flights are a bit of an extravagance!

      However, having seen the new pics, I’d actually be tempted to use this (if I ever had a need to make that journey) – until now, I’d have driven it personally (ok, that takes a lot longer, but it’s purely a personal choice I’d take over public transport in general).

      • John says:

        1 Feb1 February 12:47

        I have driven, taken the train and flown, all for different reasons. It’s very rare that I actually have a proper choice between modes of transport. Transporting 200kg of equipment? Drive. Day trip? Fly. Leisure trip not venturing out of the city? Train.

      • TripRep says:

        1 Feb1 February 14:10

        Oh dear that old arguement again…
        “That said, I’ve always thought UK domestic mainland flights are a bit of an extravagance!”

        Having flown between Inverness & Bristol and Aberdeen & London, I can confirm that I’ll always want to fly rather than attempt a ridiculously long and relatively expensive train journey.

      • Canuck says:

        1 Feb1 February 18:30

        “Domestic a bit of an extravagance”. You should see flights in Canada, where you can fly between cities less than an hours drive apart. Granted there is little in terms of rail connections but still amazes me there are several flights a day and therefore demand.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        1 Feb1 February 21:48

        I knew that’d stir something up ;oP for clarity, I’m not against them per se, I’m not an environmentalist and as someone who has taken status runs, which is basically flying for the sake of flying (ok, not entirely) I wouldn’t criticise anyone for choosing air travel over anything else. I can also see the benefit of them in certain scenarios (and I agree, rail doesn’t help itself with ridiculous pricing vs air travel sometimes).

        I’m generally only referring to short flights, rather than domestics in general – I live in Australia, I’m not driving from Melbourne to Perth, for example. But needs must I suppose, and @Canuck, fair enough, wasn’t aware of those, but there you have it!

• May Lim says:

  1 Feb1 February 05:47

  When I lived in London, I used to travel to Edinburgh & Glasgow for my clients’ audit on the sleeper train. Missed them

• Flytographer says:

  1 Feb1 February 06:01

  O/T – what’s the best Hilton propert in New York City and Chicago? I know Rob likes the Conrad in New York City.

  • Leo says:

    1 Feb1 February 06:30

    Try the Bits article.

  • Michael C says:

    1 Feb1 February 06:32

    Not sure if it’s the style you want, but Rob recently mentioned the brand new Hilton Embassy Midtown, too.

  • Tilly says:

    1 Feb1 February 08:41

    Stayed in both Hilton Times Square and Hilton New York by central park. Both lovely but preferred the one near central park.

    In Chicago we stayed at The Drake …….very nice!

  • Bsuije says:

    1 Feb1 February 08:46

    A couple of years ago, I stayed at the Hilton Times Sq and also a Garden Inn (maybe?) in the Fashion District.

    The latter was atrocious – room was small, way too noisy and breakfast was a pitiful experience (though, to be fair, they did offer a voucher to spend at a nearby deli if you didn’t want to pay for breakfast in the hotel).

    The Hilton at Times Sq was definitely the better of the two! Nothing spectacular, but the stay was pleasant enough…

    • Intentionally Blank says:

      1 Feb1 February 10:46

      Same here (re: fashion district). Hated it. Freezing whilst having breakfast too

• JamesB says:

  1 Feb1 February 06:52

  Very much looking forward to trying these 🙂 Prices look good when considering they buy you a day or save you a night in an hotel. It shoud be noted too that hotels even in Fort William and Inverness can be very expensive so a return sleeper journey from London could make great sense. Having no airport in Fort William and limited flights to Inverness adds to their appeal. Then there is the opportunity during much of the year to wake up during daylight hours to breakfast on the West Highland Line or the ride through Perthshire up to Inverness.

  • Andrew says:

    1 Feb1 February 10:33

    Need an edit button…

  • JamesB says:

    1 Feb1 February 12:36

    Great story Andrew 🙂 A comment below asks why bother, you just answered… for the travel experience, I thought we were all supposed to be travel enthusiasts on here. I guess you can recall too the even earlier experiences on the first intercity stagecoach double deckers, those were the days!

    Good to hear that you have good choice of flights to London. I did not realise easyjet was 3-4 daily, an extra BA rotation would be good though.

    • Rich says:

      1 Feb1 February 16:18

      BA start twice daily (evening flight) on some days from April.

    • JamesB says:

      1 Feb1 February 19:05

      Good to know but, given that, it seems a little idd that they have oushed the other flight a little later into the afternoon. I wasn’t too happy as it vut my exINV connection times but at least the reliabilith record is good.

• Noggins says:

  1 Feb1 February 07:48

  I just hope they put more investment into the daily cleaning routines too. The ‘old’ experience would have been greatly improved if you didn’t feel you were in such a dirty environment. Although sheets are clean, I grant you.

  • Lady London says:

    1 Feb1 February 14:58

    On trains the loos is the thing that is pretty much all the time a really negative experience.

• Dave says:

  1 Feb1 February 09:00

  Just not sure why I would travel into London to get a 12 hour sleeper train when I could travel to London and get a sub 2 hour flight for 25% of the train cost.

  • Chris says:

    1 Feb1 February 09:08

    Remember that when you are standing in the crush of the Piccadilly line for over an hour, instead of stepping off a train in Central London.

  • Lumma says:

    1 Feb1 February 09:13

    Because you can arrive in central London right at the start of the day fully refreshed, rather than either having to drag yourself to an airport at an early hour or missing most of the day. Or having to pay for a hotel in London the night before.

    Other than that, even on the other old trains, it’s generally considered a pleasant way to travel.

  • jarvester says:

    1 Feb1 February 09:22

    I’ll give you an example. I sometimes look after my kids in the evening and need to be in London first thing the next morning. I’d much rather put kids to bed, have dinner with my wife then get the improved train at 11pm, arriving at King’s X after sleeping through the night. The alternative is getting up at 4am to get in the car, park at the airport, get shuttle bus, go through security, catch a packed flight full of other zombies, then travel into central london and get to my meeting (possibly late). When doing the latter, my energy levels just drop off a cliff after lunch whilst if travelling by train I am a lot more productive

    • Stu N says:

      1 Feb1 February 09:49

      When I was a regular Edinburgh-London business traveller, I used the sleeper for a change of routine or if I had things in the evening in either city. You boarded at 2300 and were at KX or Waverley before 0800 after some sleep. Sure, I never slept that well on it but then a 4.45 start for a 6.30 flight isn’t great either.

      Was invaluable for a Fort William weekend too once, left the Fort early evening, food and a couple of drinks as we sailed across Rannoch Moor and still made Docklands for 0900 Monday! The look on the ticket inspectors face at Canary Wharf was priceless when I showed him my £250+ ticket with Zones 1-2 add-on to clear the barriers!

    • Intentionally Blank says:

      1 Feb1 February 10:47

      And you don’t get your bits and pieces fondled by random strangers

      • Lady London says:

        1 Feb1 February 15:00

        Are you referring to luggage, @Intentionally Blank ?

• BlueThroughCrimp says:

  1 Feb1 February 09:07

  Serco haven’t spent £100M.
  The funding has come from Holyrood, and Westminster.

• Oxonlad says:

  1 Feb1 February 09:22

  I’m a fan of long distance overnight rail travel but the Caledonian sleeper which I’ve used a few times doesn’t compare well with the likes of the Indian Pacific or Amtrak’s Californian Zephyr. The kids thought it was good fun sleeping on a train when they were younger but I dubbed it the ‘lack-of sleeper’. Too much stopping and shunting around in the night to get decent night’s kip. And don’t get trapped in the bar all night by someone looking for a drinking buddy!

  The lack of showering facilities was the worst feature. Once arrived at Euston to find the public showers closed. Fortunately the hotel I was staying in let me in early to have a shower otherwise I’d have gone to meetings un-scrubbed. Not nice.

  However, looking forward to giving the new rolling sock a try when it comes into service.

  • RussellH says:

    1 Feb1 February 11:34

    I have not taken one of the current (Mark 3) sleepers this century (the new sleepers are mark 5), but I am sure that the cabins were less cramped than the roomettes on the California Zephyr, which we took in April 2016. And I would very strongly recommend the California Zephyr as a truly amazing trip. But we were not prepared to risk the showers in the Amtrak sleepers – the condition of the track is such that you are going to be thrown around all over the place much of the time. USA track condition is generally poor, compared with Europe.

    It is the first five cars built that have just arrived, from Velim in the Czech Republic, where the initial testing has been done. They are currently undergoing staic tests here – eg. checking that when the various types of loco connect, all the various electrical connections also work correctly (normal for new trains is that they do not), a certain amount of tweaking needs to be done and the results fed back to the CAF plant in Spain where the rest are being built.

    The reason for starting the new service in October is deliberately not to do so during the summer peak. There will almost certainly be other things that “gang aglay” once the public is let loose on them, so best to do it as the demand starts to fall.

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